Keeping it PG
by HecateA
Summary: Traveling just isn't the same when small ears and small eyes are in the group. Oneshot. Written for Percy Jackson Ship Weeks.


**My favourite thing is back! The Percy Jackson Ship Weeks! Yeay! Bigger and better than last year and all! I'll be doing my absolute best to participate in all of them, even the ships I don't usually support. I actually have a few ideas already developed. That means:**

July 14-20- Thalia and Luke

July 21-27- Beckendorf and Silena (I honnestly do try to call him Charles, I really do)

July 28- August 3- Grover and Juniper

August 4-10- Chris and Clarisse

August 11-17 Tyson and Ella

August 18-24- Frank and Hazel

August 25-31- Leo and Hazel

September 1-7- Leo and Reyna

September 8-14- Jason and Reyna

September 15-21- Jason and Piper

September 22-28- Free Ship!

September 28- October 7- Percy and Annabeth

**You guys should be very proud of me because I'm writing a happy story even if I found a way to make it sad. You're welcome!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below**

* * *

**Percy Jackson Ship Weeks #1 Luke and Thalia**

**Keeping it PG**

* * *

Luke propped up his elbows on the sticky table.

"We can't hide out in the McDonald's forever," Thalia pointed out.

"Have you seen their one employee? I think we could get away with spending a night dry if we climb up to the top of the play structure a couple of hours before closing time. He's got the look of a lazy employee. A lazy employee who couldn't climb up to the top of the play structure." Luke said picking at the order of fries spilled out over a tray.

"Maybe," Thalia said. "But that's avoiding the problem."

"Avoidance is good. I like it."

"Luke," Thalia said giving him a stink eye. Of course she was focusing on the problem, keeping them all alive. That's how their little troupe operated, after all. "Our cache is completely screwed. We'd have to go up North and hit the one in Wisconsin."

"Nah, Winter's coming. We can't stop heading down south, we're already late." Luke said. The plan was to beat the cold and head to the Southern, warmer states. Florida was their ideal destination, but Luke would be ready to settle and talk Thalia into pausing in Tennessee.

"Then we have to go East again," Thalia said. Luke nodded and she scowled. "Luke, that's even colder."

"Yeah, but we don't have anything out West, Indiana's our closest cache," Luke said. "Indiana's not _that _cold. I think."

"What's a cache?" A small curious voice piped up next to them.

Luke nearly swore. Annabeth was standing next to them in her t-shirt and shorts. She'd shed a couple of layers of clothes once they got in the restaurant and now she was running amuck the play place with her curls trailing behind.

They'd been careful to keep her attention off. She'd swallowed her Happy Meal whole before sprinting off to play, and Luke and Thalia had paced themselves so that their planning would look like they were just slow eaters. They talked quietly.

Thalia shot Luke a look like _don't let her know we're in some pretty deep Styx. _

Of course, her looks didn't scare him anymore- he'd seen those blue eyes enough- but they still got Thalia's points across just fine.

_"_I didn't say cache I said class," Luke said. Annabeth wrinkled her nose like _ewe, the education system. _

"Do you want to come play with me?" She asked.

"Gee Annabeth…" he said.

"There's a ball pit." Annabeth said it like a bargaining businesswoman might.

Thalia nodded to shoo Luke off. Annabeth couldn't get suspicious. That was their number one rule: if there's a problem, Annabeth doesn't know about it. She was just a little kid, after all. Sure, she didn't have that much hope and innocence left but the both of them were determined to protect it.

"Wow, you sure know how to get me," Luke said. Annabeth beamed.

"Take your shoes off," she said. He'd barely kicked off his sneakers before she dragged him into the Play Place and started climbing up the structure like a monkey.

* * *

Luke was building up their safe house. It'd gotten destroyed in last night's thunderstorm but Thalia had been able to keep them mostly dry with a weird combination of strong words with her father and manipulating the tarp inside that they used to stay off the ground.

Usually Thalia did this, but she was doing Annabeth's hair at the moment to calm her down (though she wouldn't admit it and always acted brave, Annabeth didn't like lightning, there had been a lot of it on the night she ran away). For the first time Luke was trying his hand at handy work.

Bottom line: it was pretty inevitable that he smashed his fingers with the hammer.

"OWE!" Luke yelled. "Godsdamn! F-"

"Luke!" Thalia called. The girls were sitting on a tree log and Annabeth was staring at Luke wild-eyed with her head cocked to the side. Thalia nudged her head towards the little girl to carry her point.

"I mean ouch," Luke said although he probably radiated the stronger language.

Thalia got up and wandered over, leaving Annabeth's French braid half done. She took his hand and examined it.

"Nothing some ice and a kiss won't fix," she teased.

"You sure?" Luke said unhappily. He _so _wanted to swear…

Thalia kissed his fingers. "You be the judge of that."

* * *

Luke picked twigs out of Thalia's short black hair.

"What in the world were you doing, rolling around?" Luke grumbled.

"I told you, it wasn't an easy fight," Thalia said.

"Give me your coat, you're soaked," Luke said pushing the black coat from her shoulders. "You'll freeze and that's the last thing we need. Here, take mine."

"Right, we want _you _to freeze," Thalia said sarcastically.

"I've been inside all night; I'm warm as sunbeams."

"Sunbeams, eh?" Thalia grinned.

"The sun's external temperature is 5, 778 K," Annabeth informed them. She was curled up in her sleeping bag with her book. They'd found a garage sale that sold four books for a quarter sometime when they were in Georgia, and so they'd gotten Annabeth to look through the box. She'd only found one kid-friendly book and so they'd gotten it for free.

"Yeah? How much is that in Fahrenheit Annabeth?" Thalia asked. That sent Annabeth off, drawing in the dirt to do whatever equation was necessary.

She was way too small for his ginormous hoody of course. Thalia could nearly be considered dainty- except of course Luke had seen her be so badass and take down monsters so many times her size, that word wasn't in his vocabulary. Besides, Thalia would kill him. She liked being strong.

"Are you hurt?" Luke said.

"No, I'm fine."

"I don't believe you," Luke said.

"What are you going to do, pat me down?" She replied.

"Don't tempt me."

Thalia's grin only lasted a second. She ran her hand through her hair. "It didn't touch me; it was just Hades of a run. You should've seen the size of that hellhound, I think it was bigger than a trailer but I might've been confusing it with the _other _hellhound who-"

Luke put his hand over her mouth just as Annabeth turned around from her subtraction or addition or whatever she was working on in the ground.

"Not in front of the kid," he whispered to her.

Thalia nodded and whispered back, "Fine, but you'd think that it would be _totally _awesome."

Luke grinned. "Can't wait to hear all about it."

"I think that it's ten million degrees but I'm not sure." Annabeth informed them.

* * *

With a sigh of relief, Luke fell down on the bed.

"Annabeth, we can wash your hair tonight," Thalia promised. "We've got running water _and _shampoo!"

She was smiling and that in turn made Luke smile.

"And cable," Luke added. He didn't want his achievement sold short.

Every now and then, the opportunity to steal a hotel key popped up and every time it did Luke jumped at it. They weren't even at a crappy motel off the highway next door to a swamp this time. The beds were comfy and they had a mini fridge that the previous room owners had stocked up for them. It wasn't even just filled booze. Annabeth was sipping from a juice box, sitting on the other bed as Thalia brushed through her hair.

Luke had found the TV remote and was flicking through the free movie rentals to see if he could land on anything decent.

His jaw dropped.

"They've got Scream Two!" He said. "Oh my gods, I've wanted to see that _forever."_

"Luke are you crazy?" Thalia scowled. "She's got to sleep tonight."

"What's Scream Two?" Annabeth asked, her interest piping up.

Luke's energy deflated. So did this enthusiasm.

"Nothing much, just a movie," he explained. Before Annabeth could protest, he went to check out what they could watch in the 'Family and Kids' section.

Half-heartedly, of course.

* * *

Thalia pushed him against the wall of the Pennsylvanian cottage they'd broken into and examined him from head to toe.

"I don't believe you," she said. "You barely came out of that building conscious. Where are you hurt?"

Her voice was harsh and demanding.

"I'm not hurt Thalia," Luke said. "Honesty, I'm not."

Thalia shook her head. She looked… weird.

"I was holding Annabeth back, she was screaming for you," she said. "The firefighters were coming and we saw the monster come out alone."

Luke realised why it was all so weird. Thalia was choking up.

"You've gotten me scared a ton of time Luke, but that was terrifying," Thalia said. "I thought that I was going to lose you, that I'd be alone with Annabeth, that I'd have to explain to her why you were gone. Don't do that to me. Ever. Understand?"

Luke nodded. "Thalia, you don't have to be scared. I'd never do that."

Thalia shook her head and she actually had to palm a tear away from her eye.

"Thalia, I wouldn't ever leave you, okay?" Luke said. "You are way too important to me. Too ridiculously important and amazing."

Thalia looked up to him frowning. Luke realised what he'd said, and realised that Thalia was asking for an explanation.

"Yeah I mean it like that," he said with a grimace.

Thalia blinked and then she leaned in and kissed him, standing on her tip-toes on his shoes so that she'd reach. It was still a 'barely' but Luke was a bit too focused on other stuff to care about at what height Thalia was, because the bottom line was that her lips were level with his when he bowed his head down and that's what he did because _oh my gods this is amazing Thalia is kissing me. _

He wrapped an arm around her waist and she wound her fingers in his hair. The kiss became less of a _let's try this and see who hits who _and more feverish and intense, they held each other closer and closer.

Luke didn't have all that much of a great lung capacity, and so they eventually had to break apart. Thalia was pressed against the wall with her arms looped around Luke's neck, and he leaned over her.

"Okay," Thalia said. It was a freaked out and lost kind of 'okay'. The kind that would be followed with a 'what next' if it'd accompanied a monster appearing.

"Definitely not in front of the kid," Luke determined.

Thalia laughed and kissed his nose.


End file.
